Dun Laoghaire, as most of you will probably know, is actually pronounced ‘Dun Leery’, in the way that the Irish playfully confuse us Brits with their peculiar spellings. My daughter and her family live in Blackrock which is just inland from Dun Laoghaire, in fact you can see the sea from their upstairs windows. Her daughters were born in Ireland to her Irish husband and when I first proudly circulated their names having just been told at their birth, I managed to spell their middle names completely wrong, on both occasions. Orla and Neeve are actually spelt Orlaith and Niamh, what an idiot, I should have known to check! Their proximity is why I chose Dun Laoghaire Marina as my cruising base this season and the location in the heart of the vibrant town, together with the excellent links to the city, the Airport and Blackrock, should prove a winner with the various crew. Darcey, the eldest grandchild at just 5, is doing a sailing course in August (under no pressure from me – honest!) and I sincerely hope she takes to it.

Our short ‘stop over’ in Plymouth was ideal. We managed to chill and do the essential jobs, replace the gas and a broken block on the jib furler among other things.

It was good to have all 4 of us together for a day, before Richard returned home on the train, but not before catching our departure on his camera.

Our weather window was tight, and we needed to arrive by Monday morning before the winds were forecast to pick up again from the north. Unfortunately, the window would not enable sailing all the way, so after enjoying a fine sail to Lands End, we had to resort to mechanical help to achieve the deadline, motor sailing north with the Brunton’s Autoprop efficiently proving it’s worth.

Peter and John had not known each other before, and it was pleasing to observe them bonding and seemingly enjoying each other’s company. They are both experienced sailors and previously yacht owners and three crew is actually ideal, and it makes the watch keeping less of a chore. The provision of sustenance has largely defaulted to me and after my suggestion of a steak curry was met with their approval, it was disappointing to catch Peter surreptitiously dumping his over the side, but I caught him doing it – his explanation was “it was just too much”…

Another meal included a Waitrose bacon & onion potato saute which escaped Paula’s extensive ‘use by date’ cull of the yacht stores, it was concealed in the recess of an undiscovered locker – she won’t be pleased with the publication of this photo but, the rosti may have even improved with age!

During the extensive (and extended!) refit, the instrumentation was enhanced and updated with the addition of another screen in the cockpit. The amount of information available nowadays is quite staggering when you contrast it with the guesswork of ‘dead reckoning’ and the short-range weather forecasts when I started adventuring. The ability to carry out a watch from ‘down below’ with the panoramic windows of Hejira’s deck saloon layout, the plotters with AIS, radar set up with collision alarms, AND the heating system, is a real bonus when it is so cold on deck.

At least 25 miles off the tip of Pembrokeshire, we had a visitor which spent some time seemingly resting before continuing its flight to wherever. Knowing that we have at least one bird expert in the readership (Nigel), we would appreciate an identification to settle our debate.

(I had this subsequent response from Nigel Scott:-  “I tried to post a reply on the blog but I think I failed the human check! The bird is a wheatear, an annual migrant from Africa to upland areas in Britain and Ireland. She is taking a break before heading on to Ireland or Wales”.) So it was a female then ?… that must have been what confused our identification efforts…

The persistent cough which I think I caught from Richard during our Cowes shakedown, shows no sign of abating and he helpfully suggested that it lasts as long as five weeks! During the day it is no worse than an irritation but as soon as I lie down to sleep, it seems to become almost continuous. I had asked Peter to bring some more cough medicine with him, which he did, but he claims that Fisherman’s Friends are a ‘cure all’ and the elixir of life. Accordingly, he has brought along enough for all of us.

So, our passage to Dun Laoghaire was successfully completed before the stronger northerly winds arrived and we refuelled and took our allocated berth without any noteworthy incidents, logging 287 miles since leaving Plymouth. I have a couple of days of jobs and catching up with family, then it’s a flight back to normality.

Subsequent clarification:- We were told in the marina office on arrival that it was not necessary to have flown the yellow ‘Q’ flag on entry to Ireland from the UK when I asked if we needed official clearance. I was condescendingly told that ‘we have lots of visitors from the UK and no-one bothers’… The following day, we were boarded by Tax & Customs officials. They had seen the ‘Q’ flag on our arrival. They inspected our documents and passports, took copious notes and pictures saying that it IS necessary and the advice was spurious. Thankfully, we had done everything right and we had all the correct documentation. Post Brexit confusion (particularly regarding Ireland) persists!

John writes:

As the junior member of the crew being still in my sixties, the skipper has given me time off from cleaning duties to write a few words.

Stugeron: The over-the-counter remedy for sea-sickness. So having OD’d on the tablets to make absolutely sure I wasn’t going to be the green-faced wimp sitting in the aft seat waiting to “sort myself out” every hour or so, I thought I would read the instructions.

Good, I hadn’t really popped too many pills and they were certainly doing the job.

Not so good, “May cause drowsiness” it says in big red letters. Let me assure you, there is no “May” about it…

Luckily by the time it came for me to do the  1 – 4am watch last night, I’d had so many cat-naps and sleeps that I was able to stay awake quite happily.

Which brings me on to my next mistake. On my little yacht “Selkie”, there really was nowhere else to see out one’s watch except in the cockpit, so automatically that’s what I did last night.

Now, possibly, had I read the skipper’s entry about “the ability to carry out a watch from down below”, I could have had a warm, cosy few hours in which to wisely gaze at the instruments and dream about warm, sunny blue-water jaunts.  I can only put that lack of knowledge down to me being stupefied by Stugeron and not being able to drag myself to the laptop to read this particular blog entry…

On a good note, it must be said that due to my forty years of hard labour at British Airways (I’m now retired), the magnificence of Staff Travel has again helped me. £22 for a seat on the same flight back to Blighty as the skipper, hopefully with an upgrade to Club Class means I could be sitting next to him all the way home.

Or I might get bumped onto the next flight…

John (Cabin Boy)

Explanation:- There is no blog offering from Peter as he is still serving a ‘blogging ban’, partly because his offerings were mostly just rambling drivel, but this was compounded by him irretrievably deleting a long, heartfelt valedictory posting at the end of my Atlantic circuit before it could be published – unforgiveable!

As a postscript to the windlass saga, there was no sign of the new replacement being delivered in time for our departure, due to apparent ongoing production problems at Lewmar, the manufacturers. It would be unthinkable to contemplate an extended cruise without a working windlass, so we had a problem. The decision was finally taken to refurbish the condemned windlass so that it was sufficiently serviceable for this season. This was carried out (at further expense) and the unit was refitted, finally rendering Hejira ready to embark on her adventure.

Another potential spanner in the works was a really debilitating back issue which compromised the shakedown cruise to Cowes. I had suffered a herniated disc, sustained when over enthusiastically  helping with an Atom install. This required an injection, and I thought it might be that the injection had worn off which I had been warned might happen. Not having the time to see the specialist and, on the advice of my wife, I saw the Chiropractor that she uses. After 3 visits, not only is my back a whole lot better, but my niggling achilles tendon issue seems to have markedly improved. The human body seems to work in mysterious ways.

Our mid-April departure was always going to be slightly ‘bullish’ with the weather still rather volatile, so the evolving patterns were studied in detail. Crewing, timing and permutation options had been discussed at length, initially with Richard and John who were to have been on the Covid aborted Trans-Atlantic. Inevitably, nature has the final say in the form of the weather and crew health. So it was that, after some last minute Hejira TLC, a decision was made to convene on board in the afternoon of Tuesday 16^th of April with me, Richard and Peter Hoade leaving at dawn the following day, bound for Plymouth where Richard would leave to be replaced by John Coe for the push on to Dun Laoghaire, this being where my daughter and her family live. Incredibly, Peter had not picked up on a final adjustment to the timings and when he was asked his eta, he was walking somewhere in Devon… So, it was just me and Richard Cracknell for this first leg. Richard is a former yacht owner and is familiar with Hejira having crewed (with the absent Peter) from Nice to A Coruna on the Brexit induced return from the Med and I was very comfortable with just the two of us doing this first leg.

With the wind predominantly from the north the passage was going to be cold and the diesel powered Eberspacher heating system made for a very welcome and toasty cabin. The passage west was taken to the south of the Isle of Wight to take advantage of the more favourable tidal stream timings and the initially pleasant sail was only punctuated by a call from the minesweeper, HMS Cattistock, asking us to steer clear of their underwater exercise. From St. Catherines Point to Portland Bill the wind and sea state increased, necessitating two reefs in the main and we periodically used the help of the engine to pinch up onto our course and punch through the chop.

A Costco Carbonara proved to be sized for a crew of four and the leftovers remained on the cooker to tempt us to pick at it, cold, through the night watches. After ‘the Bill’, we sailed gently through the darkness as our landfall off Salcombe threatened to be while it was still dark and there was no hurry to get into Queen Anne’s Battery Marina in Plymouth.

This being  under the same ownership as Northney Marina, there should be no mooring charge having booked in advance, but MDL have not ‘covered themselves in glory’ over the last 18 months in Hayling Island, so this remains to be seen.

It being so cold and with just the two of us, in case of emergencies on deck, we have chosen to ‘kip down’ off watch in the saloon, fully kitted. This was a mixed blessing as Richard has a hearty snore! Amanda is clearly a saint – Paula may be thinking of pots and kettles…

Richard writes:

Its good to be aboard Hejira again! Our shakedown sail to Cowes was a wet and windy affair and I was hoping for better conditions for this trip down to Plymouth. Dawn yesterday was delightful, our early start blessed with a beautiful sunrise, a fair wind, flat seas, seals basking and cheese & marmite sausages in rolls, washed down with Nicks tea (which turned out to be coffee!).

The wind picked up to a steady 18 knots giving us a thrilling sail along the South side of the IOW but continued increasing to a steady 24/25 knots, gusting 30 knots at times, The sea state becoming lumpier, particularly around St Catherine’s Point and later, Portland Bill. All in all, quite a roller coaster ride with only a couple of incidents. The first when we suddenly slowed to just one knot, with no apparent reason why. We peered over the side and saw nothing. Only when we retracted the keel and turned the engine on did it clear. Quite bizarre; possibly we snagged a fishing net or a load of lobster pots? Who knows! The second, much more dangerous, when we ran out of gas so had to change the cylinder. This, on a wet deck, heeling at 45 degrees, in 30 knots of wind and waves breaking over us. This involved being sprawled on the lurching aft deck, grappling with all the lines, ladders, gas tanks etc, getting absolutely soaked.

And since the skipper deigns to mention snoring and in the spirit of ‘what happens on board, stays on board’ I have to say that Paula really is the greater saint as it is not only Nicks snoring that I had to cope with!!!